#metoo killed friendly banter
Lone_Wolf
Arizona
On a few occasions I was tempted to crack wise but held back because I am now hyper vigilant about this #metoo bullshit.
I know I'm probably over thinking it but why risk it.
I recently saw a dude apologize profusely to a tough as nails female co-worker for saying the word "shit". She just laughed like he was an idiot.
I wonder what this #metoo looks like from a confident woman's perspective.
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Regardless, almost anything not related to work could be taken out of context if there is motivation to do so.
Need to be careful about women in the work place. They are there so that they can pay their bills and develop careers. Need to lay off of them unless something they say specifically makes an invitation. Otherwise only the gentlest approaches would be deemed acceptable.
SJG
SJG
Sometimes banter is loaded with misogyny or other hate speech.
SJG
My concern about harassment was such that I had a long talk with her about it. She let me babble on about case law, varying situations, and every damned thing I thought I knew on the subject. She looked me in the eye, scowled, and then said, “Fuck! That’s no fun. Just shut up and keep doing whatever you’re doing. I love it.”
My point is that questionable situations need to be addressed. If you just finished extolling why male on top for a 69 is best and you turn around and your 21 year old intern is blushing crimson, take her aside later, apologize, explain steps taken to avoid putting your foot in your mouth again. Situations of harassment and hostile work environment precede #MeToo by many years.
And yea, she is very unlikely to do that but you did just give her the power to fuck your world up.
Really? Are you sure this is the forum for that opinion?
But in general it is wrong to put anyone on their job into a negative situation via banter or sexual expectations. not saying you ever did this. But it is very common. I think out OP has got a serious problem.
SJG
It's cool that you can tell your coworker she is beautiful without worrying of bs accusations. She's such a cool friend she would never, in a million years, do anything like that. Probably.
One can argue that today's environment is an over-correction but it needed to happen and perhaps a happy-medium can be achieved in the future (or it can get worse).
And as far as mjx01, I am glad that millennials would be able to quickly deal with you.
SJG
Even so, at least at my place of work, you could have easily been terminated if the intern complained.
Sometimes there is crazy lurking just under a sane demeanor with these honeys.
SJG
I knew of one dude that worked in shipping that would get touchy feely with a lot of the females just walking the halls. Very blatant. Took forever to finally fire him. That dude would last only two days in the current environment.
+1. I interact with a lot of females in my professional life and I've never felt particularly stifled. Just steer clear from religion, politics and sexual references and you should be fine.
There’s apparently one club in the Rocky Mountain region with a notorious strip club manager who requires dancers to give out VHM/UHM lapdances for the audition. And he can get away with that because that club is a moneymaker.
Seriously, THIS. #metoo isn’t about “snowflake millennials.” It’s about a victim being able to say something if he/she has been assaulted or harassed.
If you are too afraid to interact because you are worried that you are harassing someone, guess what, you probably are. How hard is it for you to be around other people and just not be a dick?
Context is subjective.
https://nypost.com/2019/05/17/men-are-af…
The sexual innuendo in office banter has been something that died close to 25 years ago - and that was well before the metoo movement began. Those overtly sexual and highly implied sexual references haven’t been acceptable in offices for a very long time.
I’ve worked in professional corporate offices of large corporations for more than 30 years. When I was young, the office was predominantly young adult professionals, and the environment provided for more office dating, but overt actions were still unacceptable. The current idea would be to avoid any sexual innuendo (either overt or implied).
Mentoring is a deeper workplace relationship, often with social elements, that provides more opportunities for misunderstandings. But even then the issues raised in that survey have existed for far longer than meetoo. Sexual harassment and hostile work environment accusations have become such a common tool for terminated females to extract better departing packages that managers are rightly cautious about spending time alone with them. There is no easy answer for this one and much of it has to do not with popular culture, but with misguided laws in certain states that have had unintended consequences.
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Looking back through all the vanilla jobs I’ve had (university dorm office worker, pharmacy technician,fast food worker, door to door sales)—I have dealt with a fair share of gender dynamics too.
But realistically speaking, if a female is young and attractive, then her looks will always be an advantage or disadvantage. Most of the advantage is in men wanting to fuck you. Most of the disadvantage is in men and women alike assuming you’re incompetent, so you have to work even harder to prove yourself.
And to make it so that it’s in neutral territory, she has to develop quite the interpersonal skills. Mostly by getting herself in a position where she either has power over others or can work independently.
And btw this isn’t just up against men who want to fuck her, but other women too who may perceive her as a threat. I may have made a sarcastic comment here and there against fellow dancers, but in reality dealing with strippers is the most straightforward interaction.
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Personal example: Back when I worked at a pharmacy, a lot of female coworkers would constantly find something minor to nitpick me on and attack my job competence in some way or another.
Apparently behind my back, they didn’t comment too much on my job performance but did say that I was a bitch.
Which I found out about in my retail pharmacy job because...my male coworker told me about it and also told me he stuck up for me because he thought I was very nice 😂. And also my boss helped me vent and would talk shit about them with me. He made some minor sexual comments with me, that might have gotten him in trouble were it somebody else. But I laughed it off and let it slide. And at one point the boss apologized to me and admitted that some of the pettiness my way probably had to do with the fact I was his favorite employee, though he always tried to not show favoritism.
Then she will have plenty of practice to learn how to play dumb to and navigate around male lust bullshit, and get what she wants from him anyways. Or if she really wants that rapid promotion, how to negotiate with that fucker to get that without letting him rule you with an iron fist.
It would not have been sexual in any way. In fact, there is probably a 99 percent chance the audience would have found it funny.
That stated, what someone finds offensive is subjective and can change quickly over time.
Also, almost anything non-work related can be misconstrued with enough effort. E.g. what part of town do you live in?
Based on everything I've seen happen in my workplace and what I read in the media, I just find it more prudent to keep all conversation work related with little variation. Hence, the purpose of the topic.
I’d assume that there is some socialization involved on the job? Office parties, golfing, etc. But it’s a networking thing and that would be the main goal at the end of it, I’m guessing? One doesn’t connect with others at work to find a BFF who loves you as you and be the one to bail you out of jail, etc.
So you can be friends with somebody you work with, but perhaps not best friends, nor perhaps even super close friends.
In the past, it may have been easier to not consider other individual’s boundaries with a homogenous work environment, when there’s others more like you and it’s easier to understand them.
But things got changed with women in the workforce, racial integration from American minorities, and HB-1 visas.
But if so, then what’s the difference between other challenges in a mor diverse workforce vs #metoo specifically?
First, everyone has the right to go to work and not be harassed or made to feel uncomfortable.
Second, people naturally interact with coworkers socially and sometimes try to form sexual relationships with them.
But this does not replace the first point. If you choose (get it, choose) to make advances on a coworker you do it at your own risk. This has always been true, but because it was not taken seriously decades ago, laws got stronger and punishments more severe. When even that didn’t work, public shaming has now become the norm. Sucks that that’s what it took to push back.
If someone welcomes a co-worker’s advances, great, taking a chance paid off. If you offend them, that is the risk you took. If you don’t like it, try to find dates somewhere else besides your office.
I must say you are smoking hot in the Avatar. My favorite SC cusine. If you are ever in the Phoenix area I hope you will let me know so we can spend quality time together.
The above is a good example of why I need to be careful what I say to my co-workers :-)
Second, people naturally interact with coworkers socially and sometimes try to form sexual relationships with them.
But this does not replace the first point. If you choose (get it, choose) to make advances on a coworker you do it at your own risk. This has always been true, but because it was not taken seriously decades ago, laws got stronger and punishments more severe."
I agree with the above.
All kinds of relationships can and do routinely form in the office work environment. But one has to be careful that they are not taking unfair advantage of the situation. You can't make someone feel that your higher rank or supervisorial status mean that they have to talk with you at times or in ways when they don't want to.
Unfortunately we have a political right which is deeply misogynistic, and it was on the basis of this that this thread started. They see women as less than full persons, and they think them unreasonably prone to exaggerate and lie. There is no basis for this.
SJG
Charmaine Sinclair 4 early photos
https://www.tuscl.net/gallery.php?mode=A…
Just that I wonder how realistic it is for a female to avoid that stuff completely. Well maybe she can if she wants to be a nurse or work in HR and be in a safe bubble of predominately females. Where she can carve out a comfortable spot for herself and perhaps even go part time if/when she procreates but not have much room to advance.
I’ve been in majority male environments before, with some college classes I took and some student orgs I’ve joined. Heck there’s a professor or two who I *know* would probably have spent well on me if he saw me at a club...let’s just put it like that. Did they outright hit on me? No.
Or a man who ran some seminar for a student org and the whole thing was about networking on linked in. But the man outright went slightly off topic for me individually and warned me to be very careful in how I in particular network and find mentors. Lest I find somebody who suggests meeting up in a hotel room. 😅
So...just saying, stuff like that will always be behind the surface. It’s good the worst elements of it is being cracked down on.
But an attractive female can’t be a complete buttercup either IMO if she wants to do anything ambitious.
It might not be that hard to convince me to go over there. Another dancer (off this site) recently posted a review about how Hi-liter is super lax with allowing dancers to come and go as they please. To the point it’s possible to come in at 11am and work a little bit, leave for five hours, and then come back and not pay another house fee (!!) if true, then that club seems freaking awesome and I just hope the extras aren’t *too* obnoxious.
But this does not mean that office romance or consensual friendly banter could ever be outlawed. And courts have already ruled on this.
Ross Perot had tried to outlaw office romance, but the courts ruled against him.
SJG
Obviously in this day-and-age he should have known-better - but getting him fired over a wise-crack where he meant no-harm I think was a bit-much - it was basically a joke she did not care for but getting him fried over a bad-joke I thought was overkill - it's not as he grabbed her tit or something.
SJG
All I said, from an individual female self-interest standpoint, is it’s not always wise to complain about things. But simply improve your personal power so that nobody can fuck with you.
Heck, I suspect the biggest thing that makes the office more “safe” today has more to do with the rise of females as CEOs and other positions. And less to do with any written rules and bureaucracy.
Emphasis is that because I know the risk, I better be able to accept the consequences if I’m wrong.
The good old days: On March 31, 1976 Umass Amherst elected its first co student gov't presidents. 1 man. 1 woman. April 1, 1976 The Daily Collegian (Umass Amherst school paper) has a front page photo of a man fucking a woman under a blanket and the heading: "SGA Co-Presidents participate in inaugeral ball". Imagine that today. Yeah, it still makes me laugh.
SJG
SJG
Papi, I've heard a handful of stories like this. One guy I know lost one of his biggest accounts simply by telling a woman employed by his client, after she was the one who started bantering, that he wished he met her when he was 20 years younger. Obviously this was even less offensive than the fake penis in the pants joke your guy pulled, but it was enough to lose him a good chunk of his income as this was his largest client by a stretch.
But the companies in these stories didn't fire these guys for the jokes/comments per se, but rather for the liability that might have followed had they failed to act. In all of these instances, the women in question reported the incidents and there was no dispute regarding the facts and circumstances. The companies had to act or else open themselves up to future sexual harassment/hostile work environment lawsuits for appearing to condone the behavior.
And yes, in this day and age, they should have known that things like fake penis gags and unwanted expressions of romantic interest by a much older guy are not OK in a corporate setting. I deal with women constantly in buttoned up corporate settings and it's not really that tough to stay away from stupid shit like this.
And, the fact is that the vast majority of guys navigigate corporate and sub-corporate employment without ever struggling to avoid these situations.
So why should an employer feel obligated to take that risk with Mr. Stapler-in-my-Pants when they can easily hire a guy who can do the job and not make actionable, juvenile dick jokes on the job?
I think it's up to that guy to sort out his workplace behavior, and not the employer's duty to teach him how to be an adult.
SJG
SJG
He's added no reviews, and he just spouts off, so he's basically done nothing.
He's less useful than the shit SkiBum dropped in the bowl...
That’s horrific revisionist history!
And after that incident airport and aircraft security has been radically increased.
Cashman1234 continues to be an idiot beyond description, but on this forum, he is not alone.
SJG
SJG